Pan-democrats are planning to try again in the Legislative Council to force the government to disclosure documents related to its rejection of Hong Kong Television Network’s free-to-air licence application.

A motion to invoke Legco powers to investigate the government’s decision was tabled by lawmaker Charles Mok and defeated last Friday.

Mok, who represents the information technology functional constituency, is again planning to raise the motion at a general meeting in Legco on November 6, but he said on Monday it would be hard to get the motion passed as he expected many functional constituency lawmakers would oppose it.

The government’s decision was unfair, and I believe that many lawmakers in functional constituencies do not think that it was okay

Henry Yeung Chi-ho, HKTV staff union

His motion is supported by HKTV staff. The leader of a staff group said they were now asking other legislators to support the new motion.

“The government’s decision was unfair, and I believe that many lawmakers in functional constituencies do not think that it was okay,” HKTV staff union chairman Henry Yeung Chi-ho said.

Another pan-democrat, James To Kun-sun, will raise a separate motion on November 6 urging Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to explain to the public the details of vetting and approval of the licence applications, and to reconsider issuing a licence to HKTV.

HKTV lost its bid for one of the new free-to-air television licences on October 15 when the Leung government approved in principle only two of the three applicants – i-Cable’s Fantastic TV and PCCW’s Hong Kong Television Entertainment Company.